Student Council

This girl just got chosen for student council in her fifth grade class. She is so excited. Only two kids from each class were picked, so she feels very honored to be one of them. But the funny thing is, she almost didn’t even try out for student council. She thought she would not be picked, so why bother. She almost let her fear keep her from doing something she really wanted to do.

I told her that we do not do things just to win. We also do things just to try. Just to see what we are capable of. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, but the important thing is we are trying. Failure only means that we are one step closer to our goals. And the more we try, the more we succeed. We can learn just as much from our failures as we can from our wins. And we never know what our potential is, or what we might achieve, until we take that first step.

I am so glad that she didn’t let her fear rule her. She put in her application, and she won. Now she is doing something she loves. What if she had let that fear keep her from trying? What if she had never applied, because she thought she might fail?

We can’t give up. We have to try. We have to overcome our fears. We have to keep working towards our goals. Only then will we know and become our very best selves.

Winner!

I am so excited! I just found out that I won an Author Skype Q&A visit for my daughter’s 5th grade class with Suzanne Slade. All I did was comment on a blog post on the blog, Picture Book Builders, and then my name was randomly drawn. So exciting.

I was thrilled to email my daughter’s teacher and let her know what I had won. She was equally as excited. And I even get to attend the day they do the visit. That makes me really happy, because I want to learn more about author visits, and how to best do them. This will be a great opportunity for the kids and me.

It just goes to show that you never know what can happen, so it is always worth trying. I didn’t really think I would win, but I thought it was worth a shot. I am so glad I tried.

Quirks

My son loves to collect rocks. Big rocks. Little rocks. Large rocks that I trip over on my front step. Rocks that go unnoticed in his pockets, and end up in my dryer clumping around. (That’s always fun.) Yes, my son definitely loves rocks.

The other day, I went upstairs to clean the bathroom, and I found a fresh set of rocks next to his bathroom sink. I assume he found them at some point during his day at school, put them in his pocket, and brought them home. He most likely remembered them when he was brushing his teeth, and put them next to the sink. So thoughtful of him.

But as I moved the rocks so I could wipe the dried toothpaste smeared all over the counter, I couldn’t help but smile. This is my son. It’s his quirk. And it makes him him. And, at the end of the day, I love this about him.

So what are the quirks of your characters? What makes them them? And what makes you fall in love with them?

Burned Toast

The other day my daughter asked me to make toast for breakfast. Our toaster had not been working all that well, and it would sometimes forget to pop the toast out. I would have to remember to pop the toast out myself by hand, or be stuck with burned toast. On this particularly morning, I was busy getting too many things done in too little time, and I forgot about my daughter’s toast. It came out black, and not very appetizing.

I told my daughter that I would make her new toast, because the first piece was gross. She told me that she still wanted it. I said, “No, you won’t like it.” She then proceeded to throw a tantrum (she’s two after all), because I would not give her the black toast. I tried to tell her again and again that she would not like it, and that I would make her a new piece. She was having none of it.

Finally, I gave up and gave her the burned piece of toast. She happily stopped crying, took her toast, and proceeded to eat the entire piece. I was shocked. I never would have eaten that piece of toast. But my daughter did, and she liked it.

As I thought about this moment with my daughter, it reminded me of my writing. Sometimes, as writers, we want to force our characters to act a certain way, because we think it is the way they should act. But we shouldn’t force our characters to do anything. We should let them develop. We should learn about them and understand them. And we should definitely let them decide whether or not they like burned toast. Maybe we wouldn’t eat it, but our character or daughter just might.

One of Those Days

Yesterday was just one of those days. You know the ones where your two-year old eats an entire container of Bubble Tape, because it tastes like candy, and then you have to spend thirty minutes googling whether or not it will kill her. And then, while you are busy googling that the massive amounts of pink bubblegum will definitely not kill her, she sneaks upstairs, finds a pen, and proceeds to write all over her tiny little body. Since I was still googling in a panic and hadn’t seen her artistic ability, she proceeded to find one of my beaded bracelets and managed to break it and send beads all over my bedroom floor and the hall. Of course, those millions of beads could not be sucked up by the vacuum, so I had to get on my hands and knees and try to pick up every single bead that conveniently blended in with my carpet.

It was definitely one of those days. But guess what? It was funny. Even as I am writing this horrible chain of events, I can see the humor in it. And that’s a good thing.

What!?

You are probably wondering how bubblegum, pens, and broken bracelets could ever be a good thing. But trust me, they can. By finding the humor in everyday life, especially the unfunny, I-want-to-pull-my-hair-out situations, we are taking an important step to becoming a great humor writer. We have to find the funny in everyday life. We have to find the humor in even the worst of situations. And when we do, we will better be able to write that humor into our stories.

But for now, you’ll have to excuse me, because I have to go find some invisible beads and scrub some ink off my daughter. And I don’t even want to think about what the next few diapers are going to be like.

Get Your Silly On

Recently, our family made the long trek to Southern California to go to the beach and Disneyland. It is a long drive from Idaho, and has to be broken up in two days. With my youngest only being two, it is especially hard for her to have two longs days of traveling and only minimal stops. She does not like to watch movies, which is usually a good thing, but when one is stuck in the car for hours at a time, movies can be a life saver.

I knew the trip was going to be the hardest on her, so I tried to plan ahead. I brought different snacks, unusual snacks, and favorite snacks. I brought new toys, old toys, and favorite toys. I brought games, coloring, and crafts. But even with all this planning ahead, the car ride got hard. She was soon sick of the snacks, the toys, and the games. She was tired of sitting in the car. She was tired of her car seat. She was tired of the entire trip. What happened next, was no surprise.

She screamed.

She cried.

She threw tantrum after tantrum.

I tried to be consoling. I tried to distract her. I tried to reason with her. Nothing worked. In fact, it was turning out to be a disaster of a trip. She was miserable, and the rest of us were miserable, too. (Who wants to listen to a screaming toddler for hours out of the day while stuck in a minivan?)

It was at that point that I had to get creative. I dug out her Rapunzel and Anna Barbie dolls, and started playing with them. This brought her screaming down a notch. Encouraged, I started playing some more. Her cries slowly turned to sniffles. I kept playing. On an on I played, until she was no longer upset.

Soon, she was in love with me playing with her dolls, and she wanted to join in. For the next hour or so, my daughter and I made up the silliest stories with her dolls. We laughed and had a lot of fun, and there were no more tears. In fact, for the rest of our trip, anytime she got frustrated or tired with the car, I brought out her dolls and started playing. It made our trip a huge success.

So why am I telling you all of this? It is because I learned something as a writer while playing dolls with my two-year old. I learned that being silly and having fun brings out my creative side. And the sillier I am, the more creative I am.

I think as adults, we often sensor ourselves, because we are well … adults. We think that silliness is for kids. But that is not true. We need to allow ourselves the freedom to be as silly and as goofy as we want. We need to allow ourselves to be creative and carefree. The best way to really be creative is to not restrict ourselves. We need to not worry about what others think when we are writing. We need to not be embarrassed by what we write. Not everything we write will be publishable. Not everything we write will be something we love. But the more we write, and the more we allow ourselves the freedom to be silly, then the better and more creative our writing will become.

So stop restricting yourself. Allow yourself to be silly. Get out those Barbie’s, and let the creativity flow.

Father's Day Gift

I have found a book that makes a perfect Father's Day gift: Hammer and Nails by Josh Bledsoe. It is cute, charming, and gives a perfect rendition of the relationship between a father and his daughter. It is heartwarming and relatable, and really will make a perfect gift.

I know what my little daughters will be giving their father this Father's Day.